By Pamela McGowan Health reporter

Last updated 08:28, Friday, 11 July 2008

Hilltop Heights has been confirmed as the favoured site for a new super surgery planned for Carlisle – despite concerns over access.

Plan: The Carlisle Medical Group could be built at Hilltop Heights

However, health bosses say patient access to the site will be their top priority.

Six doctor’s practices – Brunswick House, Spencer Street and four combined at Grosvenor House/Warwick Square – are joining forces to create the Carlisle Medical Group, a new one-stop health centre for patients.

Next week health chiefs will launch a public consultation on the plans, which they say will allow them to improve services and offer patients a much wider range of treatment.

Dr Alex Docton, a GP at Spencer Street, said that over the past few months they had been analysing potential sites.

The one that came out on top was land at Hilltop Heights, just off London Road next to the Swallow Hilltop Hotel.

The site, currently housing the CueDoc treatment centre and some services from the former Central Clinic, has been previously criticised for being on top of a steep hill.

But Dr Docton said this would be addressed with 200 free parking spaces and a new footpath with benches at 50m intervals.

The new super surgery is part of a wider shake-up of healthcare in Carlisle. The first step was to close the crumbling Central Clinic, in Victoria Place, and move many of the services to Hilltop Heights, creating the new London Road Community Clinic.

It is now planned that CueDoc will move out of Hilltop Heights and into the Cumberland Infirmary, where a new primary care assessment centre is being set up.

The new surgery would be built on land to the rear of the CueDoc building.

Dr Docton said they have nearly 10,000 patients so finding a site near everyone would be impossible.

However, they are planning on retaining the existing Grosvenor House surgery in Morton and opening it up to all of their patients in that area.

It will provide basic GP and nursing treatment, though for more complex treatment they will still have to travel to the new Hilltop Heights centre.

Dr Docton urged anyone with concerns, questions or ideas to come along to the public consultation meetings or respond to the questionnaire. He said: “What I would say to patients is that we are taking the good bits of the service with us and building on it. That which you cherish will remain.”

A separate project is also underway to create a new-build surgery in Stanwix, serving the north of the city.

The public meetings are: Thursday, July 17, 2pm, Harraby Community Centre; Tuesday, July 22, 7pm, Tullie House; Thursday, August 7, 7pm, Morton Community Centre.

Questionnaires will also be sent out to every patient on their database on August 7.

The plans will then be reviewed before the final proposal is unveiled on Friday October 10.